Trees don’t talk
by planet p
Summary: AU; Miss Parker wakes up in unfamiliar surrounds. Or are they?


**Trees don't talk** by planet p

**Disclaimer** I don't own _the Pretender_ or any of its characters. I don't own _It Must Have Been Love_.

**Author's Note** AU, I suppose. How Catherine and Sydney were meant to be together. Kind of lame, I know.

* * *

_For siblings everywhere,_

* * *

Parker blinked in the harsh morning light. She wasn't ready to wake up. She was comfortable and warm right where she was.

Daylight won out and her eyes blinked open. She watched shafts of dust dancing in the beams of light coming through the white painted glass, the paint scratched away in places.

She squinted. They were words, backwards from inside. She read them aloud. "The Trees." Curious, she sat, swinging her legs off over the mattress, frayed edges scratching her calves with horsehair. A hand touched her arm to stop her from leaving and she slapped it away. "No."

She tossed her head back, fixing her face with a suitable glare, a little bit bad but a little bit nice too.

Her eyes went wide and she leapt from the bed and stumbled into the door. Shaking all over, she pulled on the door until it opened and ran down the narrow hall. The back door slammed against the boards on the outer wall and Parker pelted out into a wall of full sunshine.

She fell down in the dirt and sobbed.

* * *

"Kate?" a voice came to her from inside.

She wiped her running nose on her arm, and realised that she was wearing little more than a pair of underwear and a short sleeve check shirt.

"Katie?" the voice called again, and not as muffled as before.

Parker placed her hands over her ears and willed the voice to go away, screwed her eyes up tight.

"Oh Kate!" Lyle fell down on his knees and took her in his arms.

Parker screamed and pushed at his arms and chest, breaking his hold on her. She ran into the trees, twigs and prickly things stabbing into the bottoms of her bare feet.

"Katie!" Lyle shouted in exasperation, on his feet, but did not follow. He ran his hands through his hair and turned away, and then he seemed to remember something and he started back for the house.

* * *

Parker stumbled into a clearing, salty tears streaming from her eyes in pearls that rolled in fat droplets down her cheeks and dashed themselves on the bones of her cheek, dropping to the earth to splash on the tops of her grubbied feet and the dirt.

* * *

Crumbs broke away from the crumbed coating covering the fish fingers and drifted to the bubble in the pan where a heat spot had formed, spitting up hot oil and small pieces of crumb.

Lyle watched the fish fingers frying in the pan, turned one over with a fork. The bottom was brown. He stabbed another and turned it over, shifting the fish fingers around the pan as he turned them over to cook the other side.

A section of white enamel and orange pattern caught the light as it was brought up through the air and flashed a bright patch of light on the wall.

The saucepan made a nasty thud on the back of his head and he collapsed, smacking the front of his head on the stove top.

Parker stood behind him with the saucepan in hand. The pot slipped from her hand and fell with a clatter to the floor. She fell down in a wooden chair arranged at the kitchen table, one of three, the second stood by the cupboards, the third tucked underneath the table opposite Parker.

She sat and watched Lyle for signs of movement in case she may need to hit him again, and as she watched her mind started to wander.

* * *

Music tumbled over the window ceil and out into the side and back yards. The radio was on in the kitchen. Connie Francis sung of how she wished she had a wooden heart.

A girl of five or six sat in the dirt drawing letters with a stick. "This is C," she told the boy sitting on her right side. She took his left hand and drew a C in the dirt beside her own C. "Can you say C, Bobby?"

Bobby nodded. "C."

"Very good," she congratulated. "And what kind of a sound does C make? Do you know?"

Bobby shook his head, he didn't.

"C makes a ck sound. Can you say ck?" She watched him carefully, waiting. "Ck," she encouraged.

"Ck," he repeated, smiling suddenly.

"That's right," the girl chimed. "Do you know any words that start with C?"

Bobby frowned, thinking. He smiled and nodded.

"Yes?" the girl tried.

"Yes," Bobby told her.

"Can you tell me?" she asked.

"Yes." Bobby nodded. She waited for him to reply. "Car," he shouted enthusiastically.

"Car," she repeated happily, taking his hands as he clapped them together. "Do you remember what comes next? What comes after C? A B C…?"

"C!" Bobby shouted.

The girl squeezed his hands. "We've already had C, Bobby. Do you remember C, Bobby?" She looked across to the set of letters written in the dirt and indicated the C, pointing her finger.

Bobby smiled. "Car!" he shouted and pulled his hand free and ran to the back steps, stooping to retrieve the plastic car there. "Car!" he repeated, sitting back down.

"Yes, that's a car," the girl told him. "And car starts with C. Do you know what a C looks like?"

Bobby frowned.

"Do you know what a C looks like, Bobby?"

He shook his head, watching her closely, so that when she began to mouth the word no, he shouted "NO!"

"Bobby, this is what a C looks like," she told him, holding his hand because he wanted to play with the car now. She pointed to the C again and drew a fresh C beside the two already there.

But Bobby was bored and he began humming badly. He wasn't paying attention anymore.

The girl huffed. She supposed she should be glad they had gotten as far as they had.

Bobby was playing with the car already. The humming seemed to have a sort of rhythm to it, a rhythm that was almost familiar, but the radio was playing another song and the girl did not recognise it.

She watched Bobby playing with the plastic car that was for a non-existent sandbox.

* * *

Parker stood up from the kitchen chair and moved around Lyle to the sink where she turned the knob on the tap. The water wasn't running.

She turned back to the table and poured herself some water into a plastic tumbler from the bottle sitting on the kitchen table.

She sat back down in the seat, running her thoughts over in her mind. She had been here before as a girl.

She took the pan off the stove and placed it on the metal draining board beside the sink. The stove was fed by wood, it would burn itself out.

She left the room to find something to wear. That was why she had come back in, she had felt stupid walking around outside half undressed.

* * *

The bedroom was empty except for the bed and mattress and shabby wardrobe.

The electricity had once been connected, that much was evident by the light switch and power boards fitted into the wall.

Parker sighed inwardly and sat down on the bed. The base was supported by boards and so there was no squeak of springs as she displaced her weight onto the mattress.

The house and yard looked as though it could have been used as some sort of workshop, and she could not imagine either of her parents owning a workshop. The property, therefore, had to have been owned by someone they had been visiting and staying with at the time.

For the life of her, she could not think who that person was. Neither did she know where she was, nor the means which had appropriated her to this particular location at this point it time.

She stood and checked the wardrobe. It was empty.

Things were not looking good.

* * *

An eighties model sedan was parked out front, for which she was relieved. She would have no hesitations in smashing the window to get in if need be. She had no doubts in her mind that it was stolen. The sedan answered her question as to how she had gotten here.

* * *

Back in the kitchen, she picked at a burnt fish finger. She popped a small piece into her mouth and spat it back out almost immediately. That was awful!

She poured herself a second glass of water and glanced across at Lyle, thinking sarcastically that it would be a real pity if he was dead.

She remembered liking fish fingers as a girl. She had always eaten them with vinegar, something she could no more imagine than do nowadays. The thought made her wonder as to the things children ate.

She crossed to the window behind the sink and looked outside. Her mother had stood here, in this very spot. She remembered that she had been playing outside and her mother had been standing right here when she looked up. She had smiled.

She turned away from the window, dismissive and angry. That woman was dead!

* * *

Bobby, where had he come from? Had he been a neighbour's child? When she had gone out earlier, it hadn't looked as though there were any neighbours terribly close by. Or was he the child of the people who had lived here?

But why was his name Bobby? Bobby, when her own twin had once been called Bobby.

It was clear to her now that there had been something wrong with the boy. Perhaps her mother had been looking after him as respite for his own parents? Perhaps she had thought it would be nice for him to join them on their vacation so that he did not feel isolated because he was different, and so that her own daughter would have a friend so that she would not feel so lonely?

But Bobby?

The name somehow bothered her.

He had had curls; brown, dark brown, and blue eyes. He had had to have been of the same age as herself, five or six. He had often chewed his fingers and someone had put sticky plasters over them, the kind with dinosaurs or spaceships on them.

But Bobby hadn't been very clever and he forgot that people wouldn't understand him unless he spoke. He had seemed a happy enough child, and had liked to clap.

Parker wondered if that was why the family no longer lived here. Perhaps Bobby's parents had had to send him away, where he could be looked after properly, in an institution, so that they could keep their sanity. And they had moved away to be closer to their son, so that they could visit him regularly? Yes, that seemed a plausible enough explanation.

But Bobby?

Still, it bothered her.

* * *

She sat out on the back steps. She had no idea why Lyle had brought her here, and it worried her that she had no memory of it. She sniffed, wiping her nose on her arm, wishing she had something else to wear, but she hadn't been able to find her things anywhere.

She wiped her nose again and frowned at the plastic car she had almost stepped on, splinted and faded by sun and time.

It was the car she had remembered as a girl.

* * *

"So what is it with you and cars?" the girl asked, brushing the hair from her mouth and tucking it safely behind her ear, turning as she walked. She watched Bobby enquiringly for his answer.

Bobby twisted his hands, looked at the ground, looked at his hands, tipped his head back and looked at the sky with his too big eyes. He smiled. He liked that, looking at the sky.

"Cars?" the girl persisted.

He giggled. "Bobby likes cars!" Bobby told her enthusiastically, twisting his hands again.

The girl mouthed a big "wow" with wide eyes. The boy was so weird.

She kicked at the dirt, bored.

* * *

"Do you live around here?" She looked up from snapping pieces off a fallen opened-up pinecone.

Bobby shrugged. Leaning sideways, he pressed his ear to the tree and listened.

The girl frowned and picked at a piece of pinecone, throwing it him. It got caught in his hair. She stood there and watched him.

He was speaking words she could not know, only that they were real and not made-up. She threw another piece of pinecone at him.

He smiled and turned away from the tree, mumbling a few last words. He watched her happily, hands held together.

The girl stared blatantly, unimpressed.

Bobby imitated her expression. "Yes!" he beamed and it sounded vaguely questioning although she couldn't be sure.

"What planet are you from?" the girl asked plainly.

"Nineteen," he said happily, and smiled.

The girl didn't believe him – there weren't even nineteen planets!

* * *

Parker sat, the back of her head leant to the screen door, and pressed her fingers into her eyes. She blinked her eyes open and felt tired.

* * *

She frowned, noting the plastic band on her right wrist, a hospital band. The name was listed as PARKER, Misty, DOB 01/03/60.

It was pink. What did that mean? She ground her palm into her left eye. Psychiatric ward, some forgotten memory recall supplied.

She got to her feet and kicked the door with the palm of her foot.

She swore loudly. "Shit!"

That was why no clothes. She didn't have any, aside from the hospital gown she had been wearing and had presumably put away somewhere.

So it wasn't her shirt either. She thought with increasing distaste that it was probably his, Lyle's.

She wrenched the door open.

* * *

It was a mind game. It had to be. He _wanted_ her to think she had been in a hospital, in a psychiatric ward. That was all.

As though he thought that would incline him to her trust, if he had gotten her out of that madhouse! She laughed at the hilarity of the thought!

* * *

She slapped him hard across the face.

* * *

"I'm an Earthling," the girl further went on to explain, some minutes later. "It means I come from Earth – this hunk of rock we're standing on."

"Five!" Bobby blurted.

"Five what?" the girl asked. And then, "No. Third. Earth is third from the sun. Mercury, Venus, Earth."

Bobby giggled. "Five," he said again.

The girl was annoyed now. "No," she said sternly.

"No!" Bobby imitated in a harsh voice, his abrupt tone causing the girl to jump as much as his expression, cold.

He frowned and reached out a hand. He didn't understand the shock, the fright.

The girl stepped back.

Bobby watched her now, worried.

She ran.

* * *

She slapped him a third time.

* * *

Bobby played in the dirt with the car. She watched him from the window, but she didn't go out.

Bored with the car now, he stood and walked around a little.

"My name is Bobby," he said, standing a little straighter, and pushed at his hair, but it wouldn't stay behind his ear the way the girl's did. "I…"

He fidgeted with his hands.

"My name is Bobby," he began again, nervously. "I'm going to talk about…" He twisted his hands, his eyes darting to the top of his head, he tipped his head backward, and then back onto his chest. "About…" He rubbed his hands on his face. "I don't want to," he said suddenly, whining, pulling on his fingers as though he meant to pull them out.

He looked away, saw something that interested him, and was all smiles once more.

He ran and fell down in the dirt, plonking himself down by the plastic car. He giggled and pushed the car around merrily.

* * *

"Wake up, you dumb fuck!"

His eyes rolled in his head. She smacked him across the face and he seemed to focus.

"Why did you bring me here?" Parker growled demandingly.

Lyle laughed briefly, having sat up, not really a laugh at all, but it meant the same thing she knew.

"Why… did you… bring me here?"

He smiled and hummed until he came to the part he knew the words. "It must have been love but it's over now. It must have been good but I lost it somehow-"

Parker smacked him hard.

"I don't have to tell you anything Parker," he told her, amused. He laughed. "Oh man – that hurts." He refrained from touching his head.

"I want my things."

"I don't have your things, sis, whatever your things may be." He snorted, but offered no explanation for having done so.

"I… want… my… things!" she spat.

"I'm sure you do, darl." He got to his feet, swayed, grabbed the kitchen table with wide eyes, and laughed. He leant forward, smacked his head upon the table with a dull thud. He reached out his left hand out across the table.

He hit his head on the table and laughed because it fucking hurt.

* * *

"Hey, shhh, don't do that," Brigitte told him, holding his hand. "Just answer her question. Why did you bring her here?"

* * *

Lyle laughed again, pushed himself up so that he was standing, and turned to Parker, leaning back against the table edge, hands behind him. "I have serious mental problems," he told her, and lurched forward. "DON'T DO THAT AGAIN."

Parker scooted away from him.

He stood leant over the stove, before he realised it was still hot and stepped backward, spinning unsteadily to face his sister. "I like this game, don't you?" he asked.

Parker reached the door, walking backward, and there, turned and ran.

Lyle laughed, launching forward. He grabbed the door and slid down the wall to the floor and just sat there.

* * *

Brigitte sat beside him, looking across at him.

"No, no," Lyle told her, laughing. "I don't see you, you just think- think I do." He giggled.

* * *

Parker stood waiting outside the back screen door with a branch to clobber Lyle with when he came out the door, her chest heaving.

* * *

"Oi!" Lyle snickered, banging his head on the glass of the kitchen window. "I can see you, sis."

Parker dived away from the wall.

"Where are the jelly babies?" he asked, frowning at the lock on the window.

"Fuck you!" Parker screamed, and ran out of sight.

* * *

She was in the car, having smashed a side window, searching for anything that might be useful as a weapon. She grinned at the gun. "Bingo!" Oh, and what the hell was with the jelly babies?

* * *

She made sure to do the thing properly, just like in the movies, just like she had always done before, gun out in front of her, quick sweep of the rooms.

Lyle was sitting against the cupboard below the sink. He looked across at her legs and snickered. "That is so weird."

"Don't you fucking move!" Parker warned.

Lyle tilted his head onto his shoulder and looked up at her. "Hhh…" He watched her as though not caring that she had a gun pointing right at him and ready to fire, bang – dead. "You wanna know what I think," he went on. "I think, you're just fucking- fucking dead!" He giggled. "You're fucking dead, and I'm fucking crazy! Fuck-ing shoot me."

* * *

Her mother was talking with a man in the other room. The girl heard the name Jacob and unsafe. Jacob was Sydney's brother, and he was dead. Her mother had sent her out. She wasn't allowed to hear the grown-up talk. He had to move away, her mother said, to be safe; she would worry, always, but he would be safe, safer than if he stayed here, and she needed him safe.

The girl trailed down the hall, away from the sounds of grown-up talk. A sniffing sound came from the laundry and she paused, considering whether to go in there or not.

She pushed at the door slightly. The thing sniffed again. Pushing the door wide, she stepped into the room.

Bobby sat over in the corner. The girl didn't like the look of him, dripping water onto the floor. She ran over and fell down on the floor in front of him. "Bobby what are you doing here?"

But he wasn't looking at her. He wasn't looking at anything. And rocking back and forth, he kept rocking.

"Bobby?" the girl demanded. "Bobby, listen to my voice. Can you hear it? Look at me, Bobby. Bobby, look at me."

He closed his eyes and stopped rocking.

"No."

She took his wrists and squeezed his hands – stared in horror at the blood that came off on her own hands – but he wouldn't look.

"Love you," he breathed.

* * *

"Momma!"

Catherine came running into the room, and spotted her daughter standing there. She stopped, and it was a moment before the girl moved at all, and when she did, Catherine took her in her arms and hugged her.

"Katie?" the man who was named Ben asked from the door.

Catherine held the child fast and rocked her gently, humming a little lullaby.

"There's a spider, momma," the girl told her mother in her bravest voice, an even then, she couldn't keep the shake away.

Catherine frowned, looking across at the spider in the window. "Oh baby," she said, and looked around at Ben and smiled.

* * *

Parker lay the gun on the kitchen table. The house had been Ben's. Ben Miller, her mother's lover.

Parker watched her brother and thought that it was ironic that she looked so much like her mother, and he so much like Ben.

* * *

"I lied," she said, without really knowing why. "You didn't finish the story, little brother. What happened in the end?"

"They lived happily ever after, of course," Lyle joked.

Parker made no reply, kept on watching and waiting.

"Big brother. They were twins."

* * *

_A change from Melody. Anyway, leave a comment if you like. I would like that._


End file.
